Forgotten Already; Crunching The Numbers Of The Unemployed

As the weeks sneak past, the cry of the unemployed becomes fainter and fainter.  It’s official. The Republicans won. They were right; we were wrong. For them, indeed, it was a good political move. They were right. Everyone cares about money saved; no one cares about people anymore, even those suddenly destitute, hit almost without warning.

I guess since there are no stories out there now of what it is like to have no money, the Republican got it right about our concern over the long term unemployed. Those unemployment checks were going to freeloaders and as soon as the money quit, they all got jobs.  At least that is what one would certainly think, from the silence, from the complete lack of stories, lack of diaries, or even lack of pleas to get something moving again on the assisting the unemployed.  It’s like the Republicans said “no”, and that was it… no more long term unemployment… Gravy train—> over… Back to work you scum….

Who would have expected it could have worked out this well?  Certainly no one I know.  We are all shell-shocked that any concern for these fellow citizens has just gone, evaporated. It appears that people are indeed, despite their lip-service, privately tired ot those lazy, cheapskates, mooching off the public dole, and that, though they say “tisk, tisk, you shouldn’t cut them”, there simply is no heart in them anymore to treat people more humanely than say, corporations….

Just out of curiosity over how this could be so, how we could have been so wrong, I wanted to crunch numbers for myself to see if it was true.

It is estimated that there are 4 million workers who are over 26 weeks unemployed. As of December 28th, there were 1.3 million who would lose benefits.   That would be week zero of the crises.  From December 29th through January 4th.  70,000 more were Immediately dropped high and dry. Then the following week, January 5th through the 11th,  another 70,000 tumbled off the roles.. The week following, January 12th through the 18th, 70,000 more…. Last Saturday, saw the grand total rise by another 70,000 people…. We have now gone a full month, at four times 70,000 and have added 280,000 more destitute families to our national roster….  1.58 million families are facing their own personal Grapes of Wrath… In the silence of public outcry, Republicans just laugh and laugh while they swim in the Congressional pool and wipe their clean butts now with clean towels, (now that the sequester and shutdowns are over)….

What’s the effect of all this?  I do Federal Budgets so these numbers are small to me… What’s a million?.  Chump change…  or  1 X 10^-12  or 0.000000000001 of my problems….It is so small it is very hard to visualize the human cost.  It is far easier to visualize the dollars saved.. The initial cut saved approximately . $ 397 million  ($306 listed as the average unemployment check amount)… Each subsequent week that total climbs as 70,000 X $306 or $21,420,000 gets added to the amount the Republicans are saving America….So as of last week, January 25th the chart of weekly savings looks like this….

• $397 million  as of January 4th
• $418 million as of January 11th
• $440 million as of January 18th
• $461 million as of January 25th.

Total saved America courtesy of the Republicans of the United States of America is… $1.76 billion dollars! Roughly one thousandth of our budget….

The total number of people claiming unemployment benefits in all programs for the week ending January 4 was 3,706,087, a decrease of 1,003,734 from the previous week. There were 5,659,482 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2013.

Hats off to them.  They saved money by taking care of a problem Democrats were too squeamish to handle.  Why have extended unemployment at all?  There was no where else that money could be saved, and it was time those lazy, useless freeloaders went back to work anyways.   There is no where else to make up that money.

For last month they already let tax breaks expire for college tuitions.  That’s been done; $4 billion saved.. Last month they let teachers writing-off their classroom expenses, expire.  That saved almost a billion.  No mortgage insurance premiums can be now be deducted. That saved over $5 billion dollars.  If you lived in a state with no sales tax, where you used to be able to deduct state and local sales taxes, .. you can’t now. Savings of $16 billion. The mortgage-modification tax break expired… meaning if your home was under water,  and you got relief from a bank, you get taxed on the amount of relief, thousands more than you can afford….  Got to love those Republicans, saving America money..

And of course no one can make changes to these tax breaks... The Cato Institute estimates that direct  federal subsidies to corporations costs taxpayers almost $100 billion every year. Furthermore, the tax code gives corporations special tax-breaks which reduced what is supposed to be a 35 percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually,,, Likewise, special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allowing them to pay only 15% rate?  (This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary). Estimates are that this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually and 68% of those who receive this special tax break earn far more than $462,500 per year (the top one percent of earners).

So Republicans are laughing all the way to the bank.  None of their money was touched, and $1.6 billion was saved on the backs of people who apparently live inside the cone of silence… I don’t hear outrage anymore, do you?

After all, what they did all those freeloaders, was apparently a favor. They finally got them off their ass and made them get a job. No lazy asses in a Republican-run world.. Bring on 2014…

They did all get a job, right? No one is saying anything to the contrary, so surely, they all got a job, right? All you have to do is walk up to a business and say, “I need a job” and they give it to you on the spot, right? Of course, right? Isn’t that how it’s done on TV sitcoms? If you need a job, you just go out and get one. Like Drake and Josh? So, everybody is now working, right, except those lazy butts whose long term still has not run out!

Let’s look. Here is the unemployment table for December 2013….

• A)  According to the BLS 37.7% or over one third of all our unemployed are over 27 weeks…
• B)  24.4% or one fourth land a job in 4 weeks and start in 5…
• C)  Another quarter or 24.4% get a job their second month… that’s up to 8 weeks between jobs.
• D)  The remaining 16% or one seventh of the unemployed, get their replacement job somewhere between the 3rd and 6th month….
• It is the first third, or 37.7%,  who will lose benefits…. They are the losers….

“These had better get off their sasses, get over to Burger King, and start flipping (cooking) burgers.” (actual statement by Congressman on Budget Committee). So are they?

The advanced number for seasonally-adjusted insured-unemployment during the week ending January 11, was 3,056,000, an increase of 34,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,022,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,939,000, an increase of 31,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 2,908,000.

What? Unemployment claims are rising? That can’t be. People should be going back to work, not more people getting laid off! How will those long-term people now with no income, courtesy of the laughing House Republicans, get all those jobs they were supposed to walk in, demand, and get? You say there are now even more unemployed?

December’s unemployment for the month, was at a 6.7 %… The last monthly rate below 6.7% occurred in October 2008... the month after Lehman collapsed. (Amazing this Obama)  Unemployment is almost at pre-recession levels. But wait! Something must be wrong… 1 million unemployment claims just disappeared overnight on December 28th… What jobs did they all get? Burger King?

January’s jobs data is embargoed until February 7th…. But based off of December’s estimates, here is what HAS to happen for Republican wet dreams to come true. Over the course of last year, across all of 2013, the ranks of the long-term unemployment declined by 897,000. For Republican dreams to materialize, this month of, January 2014, total employment must rise by 1.58 million workers or by a total equal to all those left unpaid by long term employment…. For the record, that would be a 60% increase in one single month, over the entire past year’s hirings decreasing the totals of the long-term unemployed….

It probably won’t happen.

Since the unemployed usually spend all their check each week, the economy for January just toof a hit of $1.67 billion dollars from the lack of money these unemployed would have spent.. Most of that was felt immediately in retail. Retail just hired 55,000 new hires in December. I hope most still have jobs.

One further factor which sort of smudges up the calculations, making things not so clear cut, … is the the huge number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) which has remained essentially unchanged at 7.8 million through December. These individuals who are working part time because their hours have been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time work.

I expect this to probably be where most of the absorption of the ex-communicated long termed unemployed will be found…..

Now so far, all I’ve talked about is money. But being unemployed is much more. It is about people…Human beings less fortunate than you or I, but, at a moment’s notice, at the whim of a boss and having no protections, we know we could be there too.(let’s hope the swirling rumors over HSBC’s imminent Lehman-sized collapse, aren’t true.)

How does one possibly show the human cost that this Republican obstinance is doing to the optimism, and the pride of this nation, the United States of America? Many of you are too young to remember this image ingrained in us,  but try to imagine a map of the United States of America and that it is under attack by nuclear weapons… When a strike hits, a white circle flashes on the map showing each lost city….

December 28th 2013….. San Diego…… Gone…… 1.3 million people.
January 4th 2014….. Wilmington Delaware…. gone… 70,000 people
January 11th 2014….. Canton, Ohio…… gone…. 70,000 people.
January 18th 2014….. Rapid City SD … gone…. 70,000 people.
January 25th 2014….. Scranton PA…… gone…. 70,000 people.

If these were real nukes dropping on our fellow citizens, launched by a sub-class of our fellow citizens, would we still be as silent, afraid to step out of line and express concern over fear of how we’d look to our corporate bosses and the snitches we work beside, and just shrug off the laughing Boehner and Cantor as they dry off with clean white cotton towels in the U.S House of Representatives members-only pool? I’m worried the answer is yes.

Well, guess what? There is something you can do. Act. Stop waiting. Do something. Act. Phone. Email. Text… Just act and tell your friends to act too.

Addendum: I saw this afterwards… it’s so ironic. After snuggly bashing the Soviets for years (and I was good at it) as being softly inferior to us tough, old capitalists, I with pure admiration today see their progeny in the squares of Ukraine, who won’t accept injustice lying down, who won’t see their dreams arbitrarily squelched, who won’t let something just get taken away from them because that entity is so powerful and distant, it seems senseless to contest it… I see them, and I say… wow, we really suck as human beings.. What is wrong with us?

And then I again see by the pool, Boehner and Cantor, just gaffawing away at us timid Democrats… Oh well. I guess that is how it goes. Sigh.

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They Were The Best of Tmes; They Were The Worst of Times

It depends on how much you make.

Bloomberg just published the top income estimates for 2013.  It is 1928 all over again….

“the top 300 seeing their collective net worth rise by US$ 524 billion to US $3.7 trillion as 2013 ended,”

Were we to raise taxes on just that increased amount by only 1%…. we’d could cut our deficit by $5 billion dollars.  Five billion dollars on the other hand, would pay for 16.7 million weeks of $300 Federal unemployment payments.   1,260,400 are currently waiting on Congress to pass an extension.

Twelve weeks of all their benefits could be covered by a 1% increase of taxes just on 300 people…. How badly will this hurt them?  Well, it would be as if you were selling lemonade on the corner for $1 a glass, and some kid only had 99 cents.  Sure, you’ll sell it… Point is that $5 billion dollars equals only one penny to these guys…

So why not take 2 pennies?  Really?  No one pays $1 anymore.  Everyone pays 99 cents and discount stores start at 98 cents…

Two pennies would fund unemployment for 24 weeks… Will you take 97 cents for a glass of lemonade?  Gee, 36 weeks, Done.  Covered…  How about 96 cents for an ice cool cup of sweetened Lemonade?  Let see, it’s cost is only 16 cents per cup, so.. why not?   Done!  48 out of a year’s 52 weeks, covered.  Accomplished!  Just like that…

And with no bump to deficit either… 

===

You are smart enough to figure what to do next.

 

Private Eyes: They Are Watching You, Watching You…

Pri-(e)-vate Eyes;  They Are Watching You, Watching You….  And today the big guns fired back…BOOM! BOOM!BOOM!

In a letter to Obama during a time of the year usually reserved for  letters to Santa,  the top heads of these eight IT companies, AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo demanded changes take place….

“This summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.”

The Following are a Bill of Rights for an Artificial Intelligence Age… The Bedrock of the next 200 years…..

1. Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information… Governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications
2. Oversight  and Accountability…Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and governments should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.
3. Transparency About Government Demands… Governments should allow companies to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information. In addition, governments should also promptly disclose this data publicly.
4. Respecting the Free Flow of Information…  Governments should permit the transfer of data and should not inhibit access by companies or individuals to lawfully available information that is stored outside of the country.
5. Avoiding Conflicts Among Governments,,, there should be a robust, principled, and transparent framework to govern lawful requests for data across jurisdictions, such as improved mutual legal assistance treaty — or “MLAT” — processes. Where the laws of one jurisdiction conflict with the laws of another, it is incumbent upon governments to work together to resolve the conflict.

If one remembers correctly, these large conglomerates were originally skeptical when the scope of Snowden’s announcements were first previewed.  However as continued information was released, they became very alarmed and harsh critics of the spying program.

Truth is:  today one cannot trust any US server… The Russian’s have a higher level of respectability; only the Chinese are less trusted than Americans when it comes to international commerce…

For this to change, and again establish America as the land of the free, (funny how that rings true, isn’t it),  oversight needs to be in place now.

Impartial and non-intelligence agency sources need to become the deciders over whether each spying incident should be sanctioned or forbidden.  Furthermore, reopening the possibility of  legally acquiring robust monetary damages for whenever such information is misused and creates harm, would indeed be the greatest safeguard in preventing such data mining to occur, ever again….

In all regards. the NSA has overstepped its bounds and all bulk acquisition of data should be made illegal and destroyed….

The cost is far more than any benefit would warrant.

Why Can’t The US Have Nice Things Too?

On a different topic, this correlation does show how educational scores directly correlate to poverty…  The more luxurious one’s lifestyle is, the more one learns….

That is so common-sensical it is almost laughable that America pursued the corporate get-rich-quick No Child Left Behind Approach and wasted an entire generation of talent, instead of focusing on the obvious.  (Notice I said.. almost laughable.  None of the Millennials are laughing at it these days.)

But that is not what I want to talk about right now.  I want to address the bigger picture…  I want to address why the US can’t have nice things too?

I need you to do two things…

1. Find the US on the chart above.(The chart enlarges if clicked)
2. Ask and answer this question to yourself, “why?”

Mexico, Chile, and Turkey, are the only developed nations having a higher percentage of families below 50% of the global medium income than the US.   Now look at some who are higher….

1. Israel
2. Slovak Republic
3. Slovenia

Does anyone remember what these countries were like in the 40’s?  Why is it that the United States despite all its opportunities is barely above the status of being a third world nation?

This was reinforced earlier this week by an article using the same title I chose above, which was based off a returning Americans vision of our nation after being in Europe for a while….

It stated something like: imagine what a First World traveler must think after emerging from JFK and riding the New York Subway into Manhattan…..

That was one of those pieces that stick; I’ve been thinking about it ever since…

Why do we as a democracy, totally and fully support those who are pushing us lower and lower down on the global economic scale? What is so great anymore, really, about being an American?

Oh, I wish I could fly to the Canaries for the weekend… But I can’t.  I’m an American.

Oh I wish I could hop on the train and see you a couple of hours (200 miles away) but I can’t.  I’m an American.

Oh, I wish I could have healthy food to eat, but I can’t.  My store won’t sell it.  I’m an American.

Oh, I wish i had enough left over to go to the movies this weekend, but I can’t.  I’m an American.

Oh, I wish our schools would teach that to our children, but they can’t.  We’re Americans.

Oh, I wish someone would fix that damn pothole.  I keep asking. But they can’t. We’re in America.

Oh, I wish I had enough money to buy everyone in my family a Christmas present. I can’t. I’m American.

Oh, i wish  they’d kept those woods as a park, instead of making more trashy apartments. But, we’re American.

Oh, I wish they’d make that refinery stop polluting. But they won’t.  We’re American.

Oh, I wish we could buy food that wasn’t Gentically modified.  But we can’t.  We’re American.

Oh, i wish someone would try to save the Monarch Butterfly before it goes extinct. Nevermind, I live in America.

Just some random thoughts… proving that compared to other nations… as the chart well shows, we really do have it bad….

Now why is that so?

Why is the supposedly richest nation in the world, on it’s own accord forcing itself to live in austerity, when it has all the possibilities that have ever been open to the race of men?

Obviously other nations aren’t so picky.  They are living much better!  So why can’t we have nice things too?

Why can’t we pay ourselves enough to fly to the Canaries for a weekend?

Why can’t we invest more and build ourselves a train system equal to China’s and Europe’s

Why can’t we have healthy food to eat by having unhealthy food cost more to cover it’s future medical expense?

Why can’t we earn enough per week to have enough left over to spontaneously go to the movies this weekend?

Why can’t our teachers teach three foreign languages to all our children by age 8?

Why can’t they fix that damn pothole?

Why can’t I spend what I wish on everyone I love and still have enough to live on later?

Why can’t we keep those woods as a park? Why do we had to commercialize absolutely everything?

Why can’t we establish rules that stop pollution, or cause a non-compliant place to close shop?

Why do we have to have everything genetically modified, even if it kills us later?

Why did we do nothing and let the Monarch butterfly go extinct… when we could have easily saved it?

The easy answer is that we chose to go down that path… Putting blame on any and everything else is a cop-out. We collectively made choices and this is the choice we made….

The hard answer, the one we struggle with, is why did we make that choice?

Why did other nations not make the same choice as did we, and now have all these nice things, while we are entrapped by our poverty and have really very little to show for all our good productive work? How come they got stuff, and we didn’t?

Why does Israel, which lives with rockets falling on top of them daily, live better than do we?
Why does tiny Denmark have so many wealthy people?
Why is the quality of life in the United States more closely ranked with that of Turkey, Chile, and Mexico?
Why are all the nations called Socialist and Communist by the Tea Party and the Republican Party of the United States of America, all doing better than us, and nations where cut-throat self expression is honored, are nestled at the bottom against us?

Time for a new scatter chart…

Courtesy of New York Times. (Click image to read)

Riffing off a Beatles tune title, “Happiness Is A High Progressive Tax Rate.”

Those people above who are happy, who have all those nice things… aren’t Socialists. They just come from a highly progressively tax country. People with no taxes are horrifically bitter… don’t believe it; you should try living in Somalia. Of course, no taxes are great if you are wealthy… but as one takes away each tax, one reduces the number of wealthy one will eventually have left…

So when America decided to reward the rich, and let their wealth and abundance “trickle down” all over us, we chose to go down this path of austerity. Without first thinking clearly that no one gives up their money unless forced, we assumed the bounty would flow to all.

The wealthy kept the money, and it has grown immensely. For them.

So now, they can afford to pay us lower than our worth, because others will jump at the chance to take our spot.

So now, they can afford to buy those who pass laws. to make laws for them, at our expense. For what we think doesn’t matter; they can buy the election.

So now, since they can afford cabs, we don’t need trains.

So now, since they can afford private schools, public schools should be mined to earn them even more money.

So now, since they can eat healthy food, we can’t because the profit margins are higher when they serve us sawdust, instead of real protein products.

So now, with copyrights paying them across two lifetimes, they don’t need us to go to the movies as they in the past.

So now, that pothole which affects only 1000 cars a day, can wait for the intersection into their newly developed shopping center to be completed.

So now, just why should they pay workers a living wage. They’re starving. They’d work for free if we’d just let them.

So now, parks are a nuisance and an extra cost. Better to develop the land underneath and collect rent instead.

So, now because it costs money to stop pollution, we don’t. Cuts into profits too much.

So now, all food is genetically modified… Cheaper to produce and that makes it more profitable.

So now, who needs a dumb-assed Monarch butterfly? It creates no benefit, costs money to save, it should just die and decrease the surplus number of species this planet is gasping to carry…..

We made that choice. This is our legacy. The good news is that we make choices every day. This choice we once made defines us now, but does not have to define us forever…

I’ll now leave with words from Dicken’s, rather proper for this time of season….

“I see an empty place at this table. I see a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.”

Well, I’ve said too much. I…You’re the People here. You do what you want with this thing. Just one more thing, though. This planet needs this measly one-horse institution to change its course, if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to the 1%.

Just think about it over these holidays… Why is it that the US can’t have nice things too?

God Bless Johnny Cash These Ten Years

It amazes me how quickly we forget. Our lives are so busy… Things blur by, pass in a moment to be replaced with a long line of new things to take their place… Did you know today was the 10th anniversary of Johnny’s passing?

I was curious an looked it up over the summer because my memory too had faded and I couldn’t remember which year it was. He passed September 12, 2003... The official cause was diabetes; however those who knew him, all knew he’d been in a hurry for some time to join June, who passed 4 months earlier….

As one watches the video, those of you old enough see an America we all knew as a child. Even if we weren’t country music fans at the time. That America is long gone, but one very similar has replaced it… full of economic hardships, angst, and self pursuit at the expense of inner peace. His music is more relevant today, perhaps than when we knew him.

I am surprised by the number of younger generation who live his songs, and know them, far better than those of the Beatles, Who, or Stones… His lyrics are simple, direct, and reach out to grasp that humanity that sometimes escapes us all.

it is ironical we were all talking about the VMA’s last week. For ten years ago, Johnny Cash was nominated and actually won, the VMA award for best cinematography for this video posted…

They called his name… And the winner is………………………………… Johnny Cash……….
All waited for his speech, but no one came up… Uncomfortable chatter as everyone looked around… After minutes someone came out from the back stage and said, Johnny is in hospital tonight and needs all of your prayers…. This award will be sent to him…..

Those prayers were answered just 15 days later…. He was in June’s arms before the night was over…..

“Going Postal” On Senator Tom Carper

All four postal unions sent a joint letter to Senate Majority Harry Reid on Aug. 5 expressing “utter dismay” at the introduction of S. 1486, the postal bill co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The bill continues the disastrous policy of mandating massive pre-funding of retiree health benefits and provides for major downsizing measures to pay for it, the letter notes.

In case you haven’t followed, Congress requires the Post Office to make inordinately huge pension-plan payments, for reasons which nobody can really understand.   In the final analysis, USPS pensions are a government obligation, and it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference whether they come out of a) a well-funded pension plan, b) a badly-funded pension plan, or c) just out of US government revenues.

A 2006 Congressional mandate requires the agency to “pre-pay” into a fund that covers health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment each year for over ten years, through 2016. These “prepayments” are largely responsible for the USPS’s financial losses.

No other business prepays for all employee’s actual medical hospital bills 20 years from now when they retire… It’s crazy actually. Lets assume you will be in a nursing home at $120,000 a year and you will (let’s be nice), live 10 years… Therefore it will cost you $1.200,000. So, assuming you are currently 53, giving you 12 more years of work left, we would take $100,000 of your income every year for the next 12 years….

Think you’d go broke? Do you know any business that assesses themselves so harshly? Of course not. No one would assess themselves that harshly. But Congress did assess the postal service that harshly. Congress forced this huge payment, which takes money out of running the business to be sure, just like you losing $100,000 a year takes money out of you.

Obviously the unions are upset. For to be able to make the payments on these huge pre-payments, they are cutting people’s pensions and benefits to pay for it. Imagine working 40 years and retiring tomorrow with no pension, so those retiring in 20 years hence, will be fully funded? They ave a right to be mad.

Here is what Senator Tom Carper proposed.

• Destroy 80,000 full- and part-time jobs after a one-year delay, by eliminating Saturday mail delivery and give the Postmaster General authority to eliminate additional delivery days in the future;
• Slash tens of thousands of additional jobs after a two-year delay, by allowing USPS to reduce delivery standards and close hundreds of mail processing facilities and thousands of post offices;
• Mandate the elimination of door-to-door delivery, threatening at least 16,500 additional jobs, and
• Impose “cruel and discriminatory” changes to the Workers Compensation program that would leave injured federal workers vulnerable to impoverishment when they reach Social Security retirement age.

“This massive downsizing and the bill’s assault on postal employee benefits are not necessary,” the letter says. “They are being driven by the irrational retiree health financing policy that no other business or agency would adopt. The Postal Service has already pre-funded decades of retiree health premiums, more than any other enterprise in America. Indeed, USPS has already set aside an estimated $49 billion for such premiums, approximately 50 percent of total expected costs over the next 90+ years.”

Do you think they’re a little bit angry?  Do you think they’re a little bit justified?

“The 30 members of the Senate who have co-sponsored S. 316, the Postal Service Protection Act of 2013, have taken the right approach. That bill (Bernie Sanders )would strengthen the Postal Service, promote innovation and, most importantly, resolve the retiree health and pension policies that have crippled the Postal Service in recent years,” it says.

Bernie Saunders bill is aimed at promoting the prosperity of the Post Office, as well as those who work for it.  Tom Carper’s bill, which insists on imposing the $5.5 billion penalty, is aimed at promoting the prosperity of financiers and banks.  After all, who do you think, gets commissions investing off that $5.5 billion?

Banks = Delaware = Carper

That is why a Senator from little ole Delaware is in the heart of kicking  down the US Post Office.    Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?

 

Cherry Picking Is Great If You Love Cherries

“Blah, blah, blah Obamacare”. say Republicans.  I say “Get over it.”   This day the House is going to vote on Michelle Bachman’s  House Bill Number One, to completely abolish Obamacare…..

Of course it is ridiculous.  And if the entire Republican contingent votes to undo it, the entire Republican contingent as I have said all along and most of America agrees, is ridiculous…. The best thing Republicans can do for their party is censure Michelle Bachman by having this bill go down to inglorious defeat….  Because this will bludgeon them in 2014.

My title said “Cherries”… So here is the cherry… an account from someone upon getting insurance for the first time… and reflecting upon how it feels…

“Financially, I’d be maybe $100 a month poorer [without coverage]. I would not be monitoring my blood sugar. I would not be paying as much attention to my cholesterol. I probably would have lost some weight but I don’t think I would have lost so much, and I don’t know if I would have been so good at keeping it off. I’d be much more anxious about what could go wrong. […]

And there’s something about just feeling like you’re part of regular life. There’s a lot of emphasis on how everyone should be healthy and everyone should live longer, and you don’t want to be a burden on society. If you don’t have medical insurance, you’re kind of not part of that. It’s hard to explain, but there’s an element of participating in society that being able to go to the doctor gives you. Everybody always asks everyone how you’re doing, and to be able say “My doctor says I’m doing really well,” that’s nice, instead of being in a group of people and saying, “Well, I don’t really go to doctors.”

Obamacare is good. People want it.  We need it badly. We have it. No one is going to take anything away from the American People that they want without losing the fight….

Partisan Politics Above The Nation’s Good... That banner hangs in the RNC’s Washington DC Lobby…. and is the first thing one sees upon stepping in….

Republicans Have Feeding Frenzy Over Beyonce’s Trip To Havana

Courtesy of Sprinkler Scape.

Republicans gorge themselves over having a second black couple to diss….
Yum,Yum,Yum.

Told You So….

The Dow Jones fell 216 points or 1.6%.

Because of no new news on any movement by the Republicans in regards to the sequester.

Republicans FAIL As A Delaware Third Party

With Sandy’s approach, words of warning went out to all campaigns.. Get your big signs down for the storm.  Feel free to put them up after the storm blows by.  Everyone got an email.

Democrats were in full force, and in New Castle County, not one Democratic sign was left standing…  By noon all  were stored for safe keeping…

There were no libertarian candidate’s signs.  As dedicated citizens, the libertarian team scoured the county and by noon, their signs were all stored for save keeping.

The one Jill Stein sign I’d seen, was gone.  Secured by the Green Party….

In fact the only signs up as darkness approached,  were those of Alex Pires, which is understandable,  it being a one man operation, and those of the Republican line up, which apparently has even fewer supporters.

It looks like Kansas,  at intersections now, with only Republicans contesting a one man operation….

If the Green Party and Libertarian party can mobilize faster than the Republican, it is time to stop calling the Republican Party a “major” party.

Even the Wizard of Oz had more going for it than today’s Delaware Republicans, who with their daily bumbles are rapidly creating a new definition of the English word pathetic.